By Janine L. Weisman | Editor-in-Chief
Good Friday morning!
The Providence forecast calls for a mostly sunny day with a high near 65, according to the National Weather Service. There is a chance of showers for both Saturday and Sunday. May flowers need watering.
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High tide in Westerly is at 8:58 a.m. and 9:09 p.m. Low tide is at 3:40 p.m. Sunset is at 7:43 p.m.
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Ahead of National Small Business Week next week, the state’s congressional delegation attends the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Rhode Island District Office for SBA Rhode Island’s annual Congressional Breakfast at Polar Express Depot in Woonsocket at 9 a.m.
It’s May Day and "Workers Over Billionaires" demonstrators are expected to gather in cities across the country. Despite a national call for “No Work, No School, No Shopping,” some events actually call for a walk-in at schools. A 4:30 p.m. protest and march is scheduled for the Rhode Island State House plaza.
The Providence Place Mall is poised for new ownership under a $133 million sale approved by a state judge Wednesday. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
By Nancy Lavin
Developer Joe Paolino Jr. helped set in motion the development of Providence Place while serving as the city’s mayor. Now his Paolino Properties and Pyramid Management Group are finalizing a purchase and sale agreement approved by a Rhode Island Superior Court judge Wednesday morning to purchase the struggling mall for $133 million. Their offer wasn’t the highest of three final bids. The key to it being approved? “No conditions,” Paolino Jr. said.
Unleaded gas is $4.09 per gallon at the Marathon station on Point Street in Providence on April 30, 2026. That’s 9 cents cheaper than the state’s average, according to a new online dashboard created by researchers at Brown University. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
How much is the Iran War costing Rhode Island drivers? Brown University researchers are tracking it.
By Christopher Shea
An online tool developed by researchers at Brown University shows Rhode Islanders have spent $36.6 million more at the pump since the start of the Iran war, as rising oil prices drive up gasoline and diesel costs and increase the national consumer burden by $29 billion.
Voters leave the Bricolage Academy gym after casting their ballots in New Orleans, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Matthew Perschall for Louisiana Illuminator)
By Piper Hutchinson | Louisiana Illuminator
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the state’s May 16 party primary elections for its six U.S. House seats following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to throw out the state’s existing congressional map. Absentee voting in the U.S. House races had already begun and early voting was scheduled to start Saturday. The suspension allows Landry and the legislature to pass a new map that eliminates one or both of two majority-Black congressional districts.
Crime scene tape surrounds an entry to the Barus and Holley engineering building at Brown University on Tuesday, Dec. 16 — three days after a gunman killed two people and wounded nine others inside a lecture hall. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
By Christopher Shea
The gunman who killed two students and wounded nine others at Brown University and then killed an MIT professor at his Brookline, Massachusetts, home last December had been planning to carry out violence since 2022, federal investigators said Wednesday.
Grace Brothers, a floral designer at The Waters Edge Flowers in Newport, creates bouquets Thursday, April 30, 2026, that will be delivered to a bridal party on Friday. Her parents, Tim and Gina Banks, have owned the flower shop for 30 years. (Photo by Janine L. Weisman/Rhode Island Current)
COMMENTARY
By Nina Pande, Robert Piechota and Jeanne Lapak
National Small Business Week, from May 3 through 9, is a time to recognize the outsized role small businesses play in shaping the smallest state’s economy. Small businesses make up nearly 98% of all businesses in Rhode Island and employ more than half of our workforce. Yet their impact extends well beyond numbers.
A farmer harvests corn beside Highway 163 in Iowa. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
By Jacob Fischler | D.C. Bureau
The U.S. House approved, 224-200, a five-year farm bill Thursday as members of Congress attempt to update major agriculture and nutrition policy after three years of extensions. Most Democrats, including Rhode Island’s Reps. Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo, opposed the bill, which would authorize subsidy and nutrition assistance programs through fiscal 2031.
ICYMI
Millionaire taxes gain steam as states face budget crunches | Kevin Hardy, Stateline
McKee nominates two women to Rhode Island Superior Court bench | Christopher Shea
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